Nicolas Cole shares how to promote paid products in free content without sounding salesy. He uses the phrase "for example" to frame pitches as illustrations, a tactic he employed for 2.5 years in his Inc. Magazine column. The method works across newsletters, LinkedIn, and social media by making readers curious instead of annoyed.
If you have a free newsletter, or really this is anything free, you have free content, any social platform, you have free newsletter, you make free videos, doesn't matter. You want to direct that attention somewhere. The problem is anytime we talk about that, the vast majority of people go, I don't wanna be promotional. Drop in the chat, anyone here, you worried about being promotional Worried about being salesy, worrying about pissing readers off, worried that readers are gonna be like, "I can't believe that you just tried to pitch me on something," unsubscribe. I'm gonna introduce everybody here to the two words that will make this go away for the rest of your life. For example, you can say anything you want and you can talk about anything you want and you can pitch any service and you can pitch any product and you can talk about anything promotional after the words, for example. Let's— I want to, I want to show you how this works. Someone drop in the chat. What is, what is a newsletter topic that you just wrote about? Okay, this is a good one. Let's say we're writing a piece on go-to-market strategies for founders. Now I would aim to make that a little more specific. I guess we have first-time founders. That's— that'll work. Okay, go-to-market strategies for first-time founders. And let's say, let's say that I have a, uh, let's say that I run a cohort program and it costs $800 and it helps first-time founders build an entire go-to-market strategy. Okay? But you don't wanna be promotional, right? You don't wanna be salesy. So how do I talk about the thing that I have for sale without being promotional? It's the magic words, for example. So in my newsletter, let's say my newsletter is Go-to-Market Strategies for First-Time Founders or How to How to build a go-to-market strategy for first-time founders. And I'm writing and I'm writing and I'm writing, and then all of a sudden I go, for example, this is a really helpful framework I teach inside our go-to-market cohort, whatever name, to help first-time founders Solve Problem. I'll just— let's just decide. First-time founders get their first 100 customers. It goes like this. Is anyone here— if I explain the framework to you inside the newsletter, is anyone here upset that I just said, hey, by the way, I'm giving you the free version from inside this paid thing? Is anyone here upset at that? Is anyone feel like, I can't, I can't believe that you would even link to something for sale? Immediately unsubscribe, I hate you. I'm gonna write mean posts about you on LinkedIn. I'm gonna go get you canceled. Does anyone feel that? Of course not. Of course not. There is nothing promotional if the promotion is framed as an example. Everyone get that? This is like the most powerful, by the way, if anyone wants a fun little like side story, How I came up with this is I used to have a column for Inc. Magazine back in 2016, 2017, and I, being a savvy digital marketer, wanted to find ways to promote my businesses and my products and my friends' businesses and my friends' products, right? I wanted to use my Inc. Magazine column to my advantage, and all the editors there said, "Cole, we have a very strict rule here." You can't do anything promotional. Does anyone wanna take a guess how I got around that for 2.5 years? This isn't promotional, I'm talking about creativity, and for example, something I see over and over again with my clients at Digital Press when I'm helping them refine their creative ideas is, is that promotional? I just got to mention and link to my ghostwriting agency in an Inc. magazine column. But look at how effortlessly I did it. I did this for 2.5 years, and I, I, all of the editors didn't, they didn't flag me once. They were like, yeah, you're just using it as an example. That's just great writing. And then I did this tactic for all of my ghostwriting clients, helped them do the same thing. Promoting their companies and their businesses in their writing by just going, for example, this is a really great hiring framework that we use inside of— link to company. This is, this is like the single easiest, most effective thing you can do. By the way, if anyone here is subscribed to our newsletters, you see us do this constantly. Like, for example, a question I get asked all the time in our premium Ghostwriting Academy— link— is you don't care that I just linked to PGA. You wanna know what question I'm about to talk about. So any faulty belief you have around, "I don't wanna be promotional," you immediately overcome with this strategy. Yeah, it also feels like you're getting told something behind the scenes. Yeah, Laura, can you do this on LinkedIn? Yes, you can do this every— People do this in dinner party conversations all the time. Anyone here ever been to a dinner party and someone's like, "For example, when I was first launching my first," company called— we do this in conversation all the time. This is just you doing it inside of the writing. Do it inside of a newsletter, do it inside social content. Do it like— it's the same idea. Yeah, Mitch, exactly. For example, when I teach my clients in our Claude Cowork bootcamp to build skills, what I have them do is— it feels like you're getting the free version of the paid thing over there. That's great. So if you're writing free content, this is the whole game, is you are constantly mentioning the things that you do or the things that you have for sale as an example. You are not saying, "Hey, thanks for opening my newsletter. For the next 1,000 words, I'm gonna tell you why I'm so great." That's not what you're doing. What you're doing is saying, "Hey, you have this problem, you have this thing that you're interested in, I will help you solve it." And for example, a really great framework that I love walking people through, it's actually the same framework that we walk through inside of our premium Go Churning Academy, is, That's what you're doing. And just everyone just pay attention to our new— as you consume our content, just pay attention to this moving forward. You will notice how many times we're like, yeah, and for example, this template that we're about to give you, this template actually exists over in our software business called Ghostbase. It's just an example. And yeah, Sean, that's the point, is when you use it as an example, you as a reader, you can't help but be like, what's that? Which is so much more effective. It's actually like by not being promotional and using it as an example, it ends up being more effective than you being promotional. That's the irony. And so this is such a— it's a simple little ninja trick to throw into your writing.
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What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
